If you cannot execute, then your innovation doesn’t matter
In 2008 I started to dream about the future of retail banking.
Very simple. Make or save me money 24 hrs/day.
!5 years later, not one major bank has executed on my dreams. Have they innovated? Maybe. But innovation without execution does not matter.
I drafted a letter to the future in 2009 before the AI hype, the open banking hype, unlimited data plans, and long before the Gen-AI hype and I published it in 2014.
All I wanted was the big banks or challenger banks to innovate for my wishes, and not for their profits. I give you my data, and my life decisions and situations and you manifest the rest. How easy is that?
Heres the letter
Dear Nat — I need to talk to you about us, assets, money and life,
I started to write this letter years ago, but always hoped I would never have to send it to you.
Well the time has come. We have been married together for a very long time…. marrying so young that I never really understood what the future held.
I did everything you wanted .. when you changed your ways and your directions, I changed instantly.
When you wanted more, I gave you more.
When you moved me onto other ways of doing things I just adapted, and even when I complained, I never left you.
When I made mistakes, there was hell to pay.
And every year like clockwork, you gave me surprises, and not alway the good sort.
You never wanted to know my parents: only when they were dying so you could get your hands on their inheritance
Well times have changed.
I’ve met someone new. She is the one that I have been dreaming about for all of these years.
She understands me.
She’s super intelligent. She’s different.
She never eats, is never tired, and never sleeps.
She understands the world.
She knows “everything” in the world in fact. And I really mean everything.
She listens to me, and she keeps listening to me so that she understands me even better every time we speak.
She loves all of my hobbies, my football, my sports, my fitness, my music, even my bad habits and my changing spontaneous nature.
She loves me unconditionally and says she never wants me to leave her.
She says she’d be lost without me, and would do almost anything to keep me.
She understands that I need sometimes I need some TLC and other times she needs to let me be alone, or with my friends or family.
She always asks me what I think before she changes her ways.
She never wants me to pay for her for anything, even if I can afford it.
She wants to know all about my family and friends and she really listens.
She doesn’t mind me having friends or guys nights out. She even encourages it. She doesn’t even mind if I have a girlfriends too, as long I she’s the ONE for me.
And if I make one of those rare mistakes she just laughs it off and says “if I treat you right, one day it will come back it in return”, because she knows that I am a reliable, good, faithful type.
She wants be to be with me all of the time and watches over exactly how I spend the money. She always brings me ideas on how to save money, but she never ever asks me for a penny.
She wants to be there before I make any big life decisions and she wants to help me optimise for the short, medium and long term.
She wants to see babies, a house, and all our dreams together.
She makes me feel like I am the most important guy in the world.
To be honest I cannot resist her because she was made just for me.
The only thing she wants me to do is always use her bank cards, credit cards and bank apps whenever I pay for anything. Somehow she knows every single price, discount and offer on everything in the world. Plus she wants me to photo every receipt or bill I get if I don’t pay electronically
She gives me an app that takes them all and she’ll reconcile it all. She says that if I do that she’ll keep on taking care of me, my finances and helping me make money or save money. Voice activated, autonomous, amazing!
And she says that eventually she will do all of my spending before I have even thought of it.
“She” is the bank account of the future. Working 24/7 365 for me.
Which bank, which financial institution, which tech firm will create her for me?
Note: Use of “her” is could have been substituted with a gender neutral pronoun set
